Page:Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States.djvu/529

Rh corrupt their leaders and subject themselves by the same evil principle, are punished with still greater severity. Like herds of swine, they are fed with grain or garbage, until they are fit for slaughter; this is never deferred a moment after the conjuncture is ripe, lest they should escape; and without remorse, they are always put to death by the tyrants of their own creation. Thus the great democratick leaders, Cæsar, Cromwell and Bonaparte, dispensed justice to their stupid parties. Cæsar, a courtier, originally raised them for their end. Cromwell, a fanatick, was stubbornly honest, but authority melted that honesty, because human nature cannot resist the moral law which imposes new opinions with new circumstances; and he served the party he adored, as Cæsar served the party he despised. Bonaparte, originally neither a statesman nor a fanatick, happening to float upon accident up to a momentary authority, demonstrated by the use he made of an unpromising conjuncture, how fatal a heedless though trivial confidence may be, to the nations and parties by whom it is bestowed.

It is wonderful that the human mind should have been able to detect the impostures founded in the authority of Gods, and remain blind to those founded in the authority of men; that it should despise oracles pretending to inspiration, and surrender its judgement and conscience to authority pretending to none; and that it should worship dying men, after having ceased to worship living spirits. An hundred volumes might be filled with the fatal effects to nations and parties, in ancient and modern times, from sacrificing their own principles, consciences, judgements and interests, to authority; but leaving them to the recollection of the reader, we will proceed to quote a few cases to shew the influence of circumstances upon the soundest heads and the purest hearts; those best grounds for any pretensions which authority can advance.

Almost every eminent man who has appeared in governments tinctured with liberty, might be quoted as an authority against the opinions by which he was raised; but the